Legion Warpaint
They brought the prisoners to the Legate one at a time, threw them to the ground at his feet. They told them to get on their knees. The Malpais Legate would wait a moment, seemingly hesitating, contemplating the kill. Then, without speaking, he would execute them with his pistol. The Dead Souls would retrieve another prisoner, drag them out to the Legate, throw them at his feet.
"On your knees," Scratch rasped. His face had been twisted by ghoulification into a permanent sneer, a curling cleft lip at the corner of his mouth. He wore nothing into battle but rags wrapped around his waist and a centurion helmet, a breech of dress code but fitting for a creature whose very service defied the emperor.
The man obeyed the Legion ghoul and got to his knees, looking at the corpses of his fallen comrades left to rot in the sun on the open road. He stared into the eyes of the Legate, eyes which held no remorse, no mercy, no pity. Hard eyes, harder than any stone in the wasteland. The Legate raised his pistol, aimed right into the man's forehead. The cold steel of the Legate's Colt .45 mimicked his cold steel glare. Around him Dead Souls breathed heavily, excited to see the man's body decorate the road with the bodies of his peers.
"I... I pledge loyalty to the Legion!" the man shouted fearfully and desperately. "I pledge loyalty to Caesar!"
The Dead Souls all groaned, and the Legate lowered his weapon. The man fell back in relief, tears running silently down his cheeks.
"Put him with the slaves," the Legate's baritone caused the man to tremble. He was picked up roughly by Scratch and Mortuus, dragged into a separate pen packed to full with beaten and bruised men and women wearing rags and slave collars. It didn't look ideal, but it was better than dying, the man thought. Before they unlocked the cage, though, Mortuus and Scratch turned to the man.
"This is your official induction to the Legion," Scratch rasped as Mortuus threw the man into the fence, "Congratulations." Scratch smiled as Mortuus beat the man in front of the slaves, focusing mostly on his face and chest. Each hit felt like a blow from a sledgehammer. When the man couldn't stand anymore Mortuus held him against the fence, punching his face again and again.
This was their usual ritual for inducting new slaves. 'Legion warpaint' was what they called it when the new slave's face was covered in their own blood. The men they beat until they were almost dead, the women and children they did worse to. When the man finally had his 'legion warpaint' they threw him in the cage with the other slaves, who had watched dispassionately and did not embrace the new slave. "Welcome to the Legion," Scratch spit and then laughed a laugh like rusted metal. Mortuus said nothing, just stroked his knuckles and smiled small and vicious.